Remove Search.hometab.com – Chrome, Firefox, IE – Removal Guide

Get rid of Search.hometab.com – How to Remove Search.hometab.com

Search.hometab.com is a deceptive search engine. Search.hometab.com modifies web browser settings and records various information relating to the user’s internet browsing activity. For these specific reasons, Search.hometab.com is categorized as a Potentially Unwanted Program (PUP).

Is Search.hometab.com dangerous?

Search.hometab.com and similar Browser Hijackers, are now serious all day threats. Browser Hijackers are known for all kinds of suspicious advertisements within the search results. These advertisements may cause more harm to your computer as they might link to potentially unwanted programs and adware contained installation bundles.

How did Search.hometab.com take over the Internet Explorer, Google Chrome or Firefox Browser?

When you download and install software from the internet, make sure there are no additional offers or useful enhancements installed as a third-party software.

Some download-managers do not adequately disclose that other software, such as this Search.hometab.com will also be installed on your computer and replace your default search engine and homepage.

You should overview the End User License Agreements (EULA) or their Terms of Agreement before downloading and installing software onto your computer. Do not click too fast through the installation process using a Quick Install of Next button.

Either way, it is often the computer user itself which allowed the Search.hometab.com redirect infect the browser.

The hidden stealthy installation of a Browser Hijacker is performed using scheduled tasks, malicious Windows services, and update managers.
You need to be experienced in detecting these malicious stealthy techniques and therefore a general umbrella term such as a virus or malware is what these adware programs are known as.

How to remove Search.hometab.com

Use this quick menu to easily follow the steps to successfully clean your computer from Search.hometab.com, adware, potentially unwanted programs, any viruses, and spyware. This instruction includes both manual removal steps and malware removal tools to remove the leftovers.

Uninstall Adware or Potentially Unwanted Programs

In this first step, we show you how to detect and manually uninstall adware and potentially unwanted programs responsible for the Search.hometab.com redirect. Both adware and potentially unwanted programs leave traces.
After you have uninstalled any adware or potentially unwanted programs, perform an anti-malware scan with our recommended removal tools to remove any traces from your computer.

Windows 7 users: Click the Start button in the left bottom corner, select Control Panel, select “Programs and Features”.

Windows 8 and Windows 10 users: Right-click the Windows logo in the bottom left corner, select Control Panel, select “Programs and Features”.

Check the installed applications list for recently installed applications, select the application and click the uninstall button.
Select the column “Installed On” to sort installed applications by date, sorting the applications by date makes it easier for you to detect recently installed applications.
If you don’t know what to look for, Goto Malware Removal Tool

Remove Search.hometab.com from Internet Explorer, Chrome or Firefox

In this first step, we show you how to manually remove Search.hometab.com and adware from your browser and how to reset the browser to default settings.

Remove malicious adware from Internet Explorer

Check the add-ons list for any suspicious Browser Helper Objects, remove unwanted suspicious add-ons using the Remove or Disable button. If the button is grayed out, scan your computer with malware removal tools to remove the malicious add-on.

Reset your default Homepage and Search engine for Internet Explorer

The Internet Explorer has the option to reset to default. However, resetting your browser settings will affect your saved bookmarks and passwords.

select the wrench button and from the menu select “Internet Options”.

Select “Advanced” from the tab menu, Click the Reset button.

Check “Delete personal settings” and click the Reset button.
Restart Internet Explorer for the changes to take effect.

Good, Internet Explorer is reset to the default configuration, it is important to know there are virus remnants on your computer. We recommend to scan and remove the virus files from your computer. Make sure the virus does not reinstall, and all remnants are removed from your PC.

When a setting or browser is disabled because the setting is “installed by enterprise” you can use the instructions below to enable the setting and remove it.

Open the Command Prompt by clicking the start menu button and typing “command prompt”.
Right-click the “Command Prompt” result and select “Run as Administrator”.

Enter the following command’s one byline and press enter after each line to execute the command.

rd /S /Q “%WinDir%\System32\GroupPolicyUsers”

rd /S /Q “%WinDir%\System32\GroupPolicy”

GPupdate /force

Continue to the next step, reset Chrome Synced profile

Reset your Chrome sync

Google Chrome sync your browser user-profile with their services. If the Google Chrome browser is infected with adware, this adware (usually browser extensions and the homepage and search engine settings) are synced with Google’s servers.
It is important to clean this synced cache. If you don’t clear the synced cache the adware, browser extensions and settings keep coming back on any devices the profile is synchronized with.

Reset your default Homepage and Search engine for Google Chrome

Chrome has the option to reset to default settings. However, resetting your browser settings will not affect your saved bookmarks and passwords.

select the menu button and from the menu select “Settings”.

Scroll down to “Advanced” and again Scroll down to Reset settings.

Click the “Reset” button to Reset Google Chrome, a new dialog appears.

Confirm the Reset of the chrome settings by clicking the “Reset” button.
Restart Google Chrome for the changes to take effect.

Continue to the next step Google Chrome Cleanup Tool

Chrome Cleanup Tool

The Chrome Clean-up tool is able to detect and remove chrome settings or browser extension(s) from the Chrome browser. Chrome Cleanup tool performs a scan for anything suspicious and removes it automatically from the browser.

Start Chrome Cleanup Tool with right click and select Run as Administrator

Select Yes to Accept User Account Control

wait, searching for malicious programs

If malicious programs are found the Chrome Cleanup Tool will remove them for you.
Click Continue

After the scan, the Chrome Cleanup Tool will Reset the browser once again.
Click Reset to complete.

Google Chrome is reset to default settings, it is important to know there are remnants of malware on your computer. We recommend to scan and remove malware files from your computer to make sure the malware does not reinstall, and the malware is entirely removed from your PC.

Remove malicious adware from Firefox (Quantum)

select the menu button and from the menu/list select “Add-ons”.

Select Extensions from the left menu. Search any unknown Browser Extension(s) and remove it by clicking the Remove button.

Reset your default Homepage and Search engine for Firefox

The fastest and easiest way to reset your default homepage and the search engine is by resetting Firefox to default settings.

select the menu button and from the menu, select “Help ?” (the question mark icon, at the end of the menu).

select Troubleshooting information from the menu.

select the Refresh Firefox button, and confirm the Refresh Firefox dialog once again to Reset Firefox to default settings.
Click Finish, Firefox will restart.

The Firefox browser is reset to default, it is important to know there are remnants of malware on your computer. We recommend to scan and remove malware files from your computer to make sure the malware does not reinstall and the malware is entirely removed from the browser and PC.

Remove Adware responsible for the Search.hometab.com redirect with Malwarebytes

Dear visitor, we advise anyone that has a problem with malware on their device to scan the device with Malwarebytes! We have run many malware removal tests on infected PCs including adware, potentially unwanted programs, and ransomware. Malwarebytes is by far the best malware removal tool available today. Malwarebytes is always free to remove any malware from your computer. Malwarebytes premium is active for a 14 days trial license upon installation. Try Malwarebytes and see the results for yourself!

Malwarebytes is the most powerful anti-malware solution to detect and proactively remove adware, browser hijackers, viruses and potentially unwanted programs from your device. Malwarebytes works excellently alongside antivirus software without any conflicts. Malwarebytes is by far the best malware detection and malware removal tool available today.

Malwarebytes is scanning the computer for any viruses, trojans, adware, spyware, ransomware, and potentially unwanted programs.
Please wait for Malwarebytes to finish the anti-malware scan, the anti-malware scan usually takes around 2 to 5 minutes to complete.

When the anti-malware scan is finished, Malwarebytes will show the results of the anti-malware scan.
To remove the detected malware from your computer, select the Quarantine Selected button.

All found malware will be moved to quarantine. Malwarebytes requires a reboot to complete the removal process.

Restart your computer.

After the reboot, all the malware detected by Malwarebytes is moved to quarantine. The removal process is finished.

Clean your Browser from the Search.hometab.com redirect with Zemana

Zemana Anti-Malware is an anti-malware scanner which uses the cloud for malware detection. Zemana is the fastest and most proactively malware scanner available. Zemana is its best in addition to a primary virus scanner.

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About The Author

Thank you for visiting FixYourBrowser!
My name is Max, and I am active in several large anti-malware and anti-virus communities to prevent and discover new malware on a daily basis. Together with these communities, we help people get rid of malware. Do you need malware removal help? Ask for support at our forums. We're here for you. Goto the forums. The forum is entirely new. JOIN US; our community does our utmost best to answer your question or resolve the malware problem personally.